Revitalized NY Gen Art Film Fest Announces 16th Lineup

Revitalized NY Gen Art Film Fest Announces 16th Lineup

The 2011 edition of New York’s Gen Art Film Festival, known for its flashy screenings and after-parties, has announced it will open with Jonathan Sobol’s comedy “A Beginner’s Guide to Endings” at the Ziegfeld Theater, and will continue on with a week of screenings at the Visual Arts Theater in Chelsea. The festival describes its opener, starring Scott Caan, J.K. Simmons, and Tricia Helfer, as “the story of a hard living gambling father who has doomed his three sons to a horrible fate, and when his sons find out they don’t have much time left, they decide to make up for a lifetime of misdeeds in one day.” The fest will close with George Ratliff’s Christian fundamentalism all-star send-up “Salvation Boulevard,” starring Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei, Ed Harris, Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. The festival runs from June 8-14.

The future of the Gen Art festival was unsure after the organization was forced to temporarily close its doors last year; however, after a change in ownership, it was announced that this year’s festival would occur, only later in the year.

The festival will host its after parties at NYC hotspots like Avenue, the Gansevoort Park Hotel, Le Poisson Rouge, and Hiro.

For more information on this year’s Gen Art Film Festival, visit their website here.

Zhao said with her Bass Reeves biopic, she’ll direct a more traditional cast like she did with her first-timers: “You can work with an actor in a certain way, you can create an environment like Terrence Malick has always done.”